In many population-dense settings, use of fuelwood is a major driver of deforestation and forest degradation.

With only 10 years left to reach Sustainable Development Goal 7 (SDG7), which calls for ensuring “access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all”, including universal access to clean cooking, an estimated 2 billion people are in danger of being left behind.

This conference will explore recent advances and probe continuing challenges. It proposes to focus attention on reaching the furthest behind first, with topics such as:

- Households and settings

- Evaluating pathways to modern, sustainable cooking energy systems

- Impact Based Finance for cleaner cooking

- Modern, clean, sustainable bio-energy in a low-income country context

- Policy options for a just transition to modern, sustainable cooking energy systems

- Transitional and hybrid multiple fuel-device cooking systems

In addition to presentations, seminars and plenaries that highlight latest research and recent case studies, the event will include musical/cultural evening, video launch and photo exhibition.

Events to be held at Wexford Library, Wexford Arts Centre and National Opera House, Wexford.

Impact evaluation has gained recognition over the last decade as an essential component of project development. Impact evaluation details how and to what extent policies and project interventions contribute to socioeconomic welfare gains or losses for society. Such evaluations are also important for identifying key lessons for future policies and investments. In the case of modern energy access, the measurement of costs is fairly straightforward. However, measuring the benefits to society is more difficult and might involve implementing national or regional surveys. Past efforts have often underestimated the complex linkages of benefits produced by programs involved in providing electricity and clean cooking energy to rural and other populations without access to modern energy services. Thus, it has often been difficult to balance the costs of program investments in energy access vis-à-vis their benefits. This study’s main objective is to develop a practical method by which to measure the benefits of rural energy, including both electricity and clean cooking. The methods reviewed in this report involve both formal and informal techniques of data collection, including quantitative and qualitative methods of analysis. The research pays attention to such concepts as quality of life, effects on education, and other key components of social development; that is, it tackles those benefits of modern energy access that traditionally have been difficult to measure, as well as the easier-to-measure benefits.